TIME investigates the charges against Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who is accused of plotting to kill President Bush, and Ilario Pantano, a Marine officer who allegedly killed two Iraqis in cold blood

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali says he survived torture in a Saudi prison. Now the 23-year-old American, indicted on questionable charges of involvement in an alleged al-Qaeda plot to assassinate President George W. Bush, faces another tough challenge: the puzzling vagaries of post-9/11 U.S. justice. The son of Jordanian immigrants from Falls Church, Va., Abu Ali was arrested in a security sweep on June 9, 2003, while taking an exam at the Islamic University of Medina. He then languished for months in a Saudi jail. He was interrogated and, his family claims, tortured. All the...